Letter+of+Introduction+-+Neiro

Dear Reader,

The past four months have been a learning experience like no other. Although I was anticipating a tedious course which heralded standard written English and molded us future teachers to be sticklers for grammar in the classroom, I was pleasantly surprised to find this course to be completely different. While the course was indeed true to its name, having covered foundations of adolescent literacy and the English language, including studying language acquisition, pragmatics, linguistics, etc., we also learned the best ways to go about teaching grammar and language as teachers, and that literacy is more than just the ability to read and write in standard written English.

The answers behind each of our course’s essential questions will perhaps be what I take away the most from our time together. Firstly, I learned that students’ initial language development, or primary discourse – whether that is a language other than English and/or a dialect/vernacular version of a language – often clashes with the secondary discourse into which they are apprenticed at school. It is our responsibility as teachers to maintain sensitivity in this regard at all times; we must never invalidate the "different" primary discourse that any one student brings into our classroom and identify it as any way incorrect or less important. Rather, we must distinguish between what is appropriate and what is inappropriate based on the context; the language and literacy students come in with should be a means of "teachable moments" for us, not an inconvenience or matter to be avoided. In this same regard, I learned that there are many creative and sensitive ways to bridge the gap between home literacy and school literacy. These include code-switching - having students alternate between their language and/or primary discourse and their secondary discourse, bearing context in mind - and contrastive analysis - studying the similarities and differences between two languages/language varieties. If we take care to build on students' home languages and/or language varieties, rather than avoid them altogether and strictly apprentice said students into "formal grammatical English", we will be teaching our content area more effectively. By doing this, we will never invalidate the discourses our students initially present. This leads me to reflect the answer to the third essential question - it is important that we as teachers remember that dialects, vernacular use of language and other language varieties all have their own integrity. As an English teacher, dialectical prejudice will have no place in my classroom, for one's language might easily bear a deeper meaning and social identity which we must be sure not to invalidate.

This course came at the perfect time for me. While this past semester of student teaching was a pleasure, I had few opportunities to apply my learning to my classroom experience. However, my next student teaching field experience will be at Manhattan International High School, where the majority of my students will be English Language Learners (ELLs). I will be sure to apply all of the knowledge I have gained since September in my approach to teaching these students, and am excited to do so. I am particularly looking forward to applying code-switching and contrastive analysis when appropriate, as well as putting the effectiveness of these concepts to the test.

I am extremely grateful for this course and all of the analytical tools I have acquired over the past few months. Please join me in reflecting on my learning and my growth in terms of attitudes toward teaching and overall knowledge of language. I hope you learned as much as I did.

Best, John Neiro